iPhone and PS3 to talk to each other in Blu-ray Disc movies
As wonderful as Logitech’s Harmony universal remotes are, there’s still one major piece of media entertainment equipment that it still cannot command: the PlayStation 3. Enter the iPhone, which will soon be able to interface with Sony’s console.
Blu-ray Disc solutions provider Netblender will announce later this week a new SDK for iPhone developers which will expand the features of movie playback on the PS3. One immediate benefit is that the iPhone will be able to act as a wireless remote for the PlayStation 3, perhaps robbing away several sales of Sony’s multimedia remote.
Denny Breitenfeld, the CTO of NetBlender, explained to Gizmodo that the upcoming software will be able to do much more than play, pause and track. “It's a technology that is built into our professional Blu-Ray authoring tool that will allow studios, independent movie companies to enable BD Touch features. These features send data in two directions from the Disc to the iPhone and vice versa. Video, Audio, text, and player commands can be sent,” he said. “So right now it seems everyone likes the "remote control" idea. However the player can control the iPhone as well.”
While movie studios may not program special Blu-ray Disc movie features specifically for PlayStation 3 users, the possibility exists for special iPhone interoperability, such as the display of Internet Movie Database information.
“One idea is to automatically pull up [IMDB] of the movie you are watching right on your Iphone or send the movie information a movie database on your phone. The ideas are only limited to what people want and will use,” added Breitenfeld.
Other functions could be for the iPhone to record and track your movie collection and playback habits. Another feature, first revealed by Sony for the PSP, is the potential for portable copies for playback on the iPhone or iPod Touch.
Sony first discussed this feature at CES 2008, but hasn’t yet set a firm date on the rollout of the technology.
